The Depths and the Darkness
by magfrump
Summary: Voldemort has free reign over Hogwarts, and sets out to assert his dominance.
1. Beginning

Voldemort always needed to do everything himself. Most of the time, he needed to do it instantly as well. The patience of Tom Riddle was gone; the long game could not properly reside in this splintered soul.  
So it came that the Dark Lord began to conquer every aspect of Hogwarts.  
The paintings were easily tamed and frightened, and they would direct him across the school fearfully.  
The ghosts only whispered and avoided him; his power over them unspoken and unknown even to Bellatrix, Lucius, Severus.  
The forest parted at his presence, the trees withered.  
The spiders ran, and those centaurs who remained bent knee under his magic, though they swore his fall would be brought by Neptune.  
He scoffed in their faces, and strung them up.


	2. Unicorn

One day he came to face a unicorn. Though years past, the stench of his betrayal under Quirrel's mask still swept about him, and the unicorn gave battle.  
Blasts of prismatic power flew against shields of silver, green, and black.  
Spiralled energy burst in a cone from the beast's horn, an imprisoning wall which would have forced any lesser wizard into retreat.  
But the Heir of Slytherin burst the barrier with a word, and slew the beast with another.  
No unicorn has since been seen in Britain.


	3. Sky

The owlery already tamed, Voldemort knew Hogwarts' skies were his. He made no move against the thestrals, which roamed free.  
Even the dementors left them be, though surely he and those, the darkest of his servants, had seen death and could therefore see the thestrals.  
Darkness cannot always darken darkness, perhaps.  
This I thought of, as I waited.


	4. Tree

The grounds of Hogwarts were barely alive. The house elves immediately subservient. The romping willow stiffened, flailed, resisted, but it burned with the grim fire until it bowed. His control of the fire that he did not kill the tree was the first talent which impressed me, worried me.  
Still, the fire would be less potent here.  
Still, I waited. I watched.


	5. Castle

The castle itself he took next.  
This was his greatest battle. If it had awoken him rather than tiring him he would have ruled all Britain. Again the splintered soul his downfall. Every one of his moves a move against himself.  
The halls changed, shifting so subtly to direct him away, yet he found his way through. The castle made up down, forced the paintings into new lies, new rebellion.  
His fury was palpable, even to me.  
But his fury chilled, and he pushed through the walls. With fire and memory and the NEED of a former student. He used the castle against itself, and the castle too submitted. His unfitting decorations stayed put after that, if they molded too quickly still.


	6. Lake

The lake was his last target. An afterthought.  
This was his first arrogance.  
He did not make the preparations that the students had. Gillyweed might have weakened him; a bubblehead charm was perhaps superfluous. Transformation might have helped, but any form other than a snake he would have found offensive, and no sea snake large enough.  
This was his second arrogance.  
The lesser creatures of the lake were no match for him. Even approaching was death for the grindylows.  
Though sharks rarely grace any part of the black lake, still they swarmed about in a radius away, feeding on the corpses.  
The merpeople lasted longer, but not by much. One curse each until they left.  
He laughed his air away wastefully as he slaughtered them.  
This was his third arrogance.


	7. Depths

The depths faded from green to black as he dove, the panoply shifting imperceptibly from his domain to mine.  
He was used to being the darkness, you see.  
This was his fourth arrogance.  
As his lungs emptied his form shifted more into the smoke he used for flight. Three dimensions was something he knew more of than most, but flying over your enemies as ants or freely through their constricted brooms is quite different from immersing yourself in the depths.  
He came at me from above, as he always did.  
This was his fifth arrogance.  
His mouth was smoke; this may have saved me.  
I felt pain; tentacles fell, bled, burst, boiled. The fire began to itch at me, and I began to move.  
His eyes solidify to look at the pieces of me drifting into the depths below. They squint, they do not see enough.  
And then he sees more.  
I come from every direction.  
He had forgotten my size.  
His sixth arrogance.  
He sees above, slashes.  
To the left, fire.  
To the right, blood.  
I feel each of the die, parts of me failing. He knows my pain; the pain of pieces of yourself departing.  
He has not known empathy in so long.  
When he hears my cry, he hesitates.  
This is his final mistake.  
A thousand lashes to disperse him  
A thousand more to drag him down  
A dozen tentacles disburse them  
This man, this snake, who cannot drown.  
I tie him down, within the depths  
as last of all his magic fades  
I know this wizard bypassed death  
I build a prison higher grade  
I breath him in  
his dirty soot  
I jet him out in ink.  
With no form in which to take root  
he's stuck inside the drink.


End file.
